New smartphone app can detect overdoses and call for help

Scientists have built an app that gives a smartphone the ability to detect an opioid overdose and alert others for help. The app, called Second Chances, is still in development, but the researchers hope to have it approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and eventually sell the technology.

The app works by sending silent sound waves to people’s chests from up to three feet away, explains Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, a doctoral candidate in computer science at the University of Washington and the first author on the paper. It then monitors the signals that get reflected back because they change when breathing patterns do.